| Novell lands major Linux server contract with Office Depot |
Dec. 12, 2007
Second in the Linux server business to leader Red Hat, Novell is continuing to strive for major server wins. In its latest significant victory, Novell announced that Office Depot has elected to consolidate its server infrastructure on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 1.
In the past, Office Depot, with offices in 43 countries, has used an eclectic collection of server operating systems. These include Solaris, Windows, IBM's mainframe operating system z/OS, i5/OS (the newest version of IBM's OS/400 midrange computer operating system) and several different kinds of Linux. According to Novell, moving to SLES on commodity hardware has already helped Office Depot reduce its hardware and power costs.
And Office Depot needs to reduce its costs. The second-largest office supplies retailer in the United States, behind Staples, is already warning investors that its sales and earnings for the 2007's fourth quarter, which ends on Dec. 29, will continue their downward slide. The company is blaming its financial woes on the continuing decline of the North American housing market.
Novell, which recently had to delay its fourth-quarter earning due to continuing SEC questions, could also use some good financial news.
By standardizing on SLES, Office Depot also hopes to reduce complexity and thus control costs without losing any user application functionality. Tim Toews, Office Depot's senior vice president and CIO, said in a statement, "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has been an excellent investment for Office Depot and is the cornerstone of our global Linux strategy." In addition Toews said, "As a global retailer, it is critical for Office Depot to partner with a vendor like Novell that can provide consistent enterprisewide support."
Roger Levy, Novell's senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions, said in a statement, "Office Depot is taking advantage of the flexibility of Linux, running several mission-critical workloads on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including databases, middleware and applications."
At noon on Dec. 12, the day of the announcement, Novell's stock was up slightly, 0.43 percent, on light trading. Office Depot's stock, reacting to the news that the company expected a declining quarter, has declined more than 10 percent on heavy trading.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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